Gymshark signs John Douglas as its new Chief Technology Officer

An image of Gymshark CTO, Business, Gymshark signs John Douglas as its new Chief Technology Officer

Apparel company Gymshark has appointed John Douglas as its CTO to drive its digital transformation.

Gymshark, the fitness community and apparel brand, today announces that John Douglas is to become its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Today’s announcement is the latest in a recent spate of appointments to Gymshark’s board, coming hot on the heels of Danielle Petesic joining as Chief Product Officer.

John joins Gymshark after four years as CTO at Tory Burch LLC, where he was responsible for all aspects of technology, including large enterprise and digital transformations. Before this, he was CTO at MCM Fashion Group based in Hong Kong and, prior to this, spent nine years with Angela Ahrendts as CTO at Burberry. During his time there, he was instrumental in driving the brand’s pioneering and innovative Digital experiences and directing multiple SAP transformations. This was a key component of one of the most renowned brand turnarounds of the 21st Century.

At Gymshark, he will be responsible for laying the foundations of the Enterprise and Digital architecture to enable Gymshark’s continued rapid, international growth. John has also made the move from New York and will oversee a fast-growing technology team at Gymshark HQ in Solihull, United Kingdom.

Gymshark is one of the most exciting success stories in recent history. Founded by Ben Francis in 2012 when he was just 19, the company now functions in over 180 countries, has an audience of over 16 million on social media, employs over 700 people and turned over US$380mn in 2020. In August 2020, it became just the second British company to achieve “unicorn” status (a valuation of over $1bn) without previous support from external investors.

John Douglas, Chief Technology Officer at Gymshark, said: “As soon I started talking to Ben and Steve, it was evident they saw the key role that tech will play in the next chapter of Gymshark’s story. It’s no secret that Gymshark is expanding incredibly quickly, so is going to need the Enterprise and Digital foundations in place to be able to both cope and scale with this. The energy, passion and desire that oozes from this brand is extraordinary. When you combine that with the emphasis these guys place on tech, it’s fair to say I’m beyond excited to get started.”

 READ MORE: 

Steve Hewitt, Chief Executive Officer at Gymshark said: “We talk about Gymshark as a tech company just as much as we do as a retail company. It’s a brand born out of tech, so we are as obsessed about building our credentials in this sector as we are in building our conditioning community. Not only will investment here mean we are offering a world class proposition to all our customers around the globe but will also go a long way to ensuring we keep and evolve the culture we are so proud of at Gymshark. John’s record for digital transformation at Tory Burch, MCM and not least Burberry speaks for itself. We’ve landed one of the best CTOs, not just in retail, but in all business and I can’t wait to see what he brings to our leadership team as we continue our strong growth.”

For more news from Top Business Tech, don’t forget to subscribe to our daily bulletin!

Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter

An image of Gymshark CTO, Business, Gymshark signs John Douglas as its new Chief Technology Officer

Amber Donovan-Stevens

Amber is a Content Editor at Top Business Tech

Nutanix on OVHcloud US Offers a Hybrid Multicloud Solution

Joon Lee • 11th September 2023

Nutanix is a leading cloud computing software company that helps companies simplify their cloud strategies by using hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) environments. Hyperconvergence is a software-centric architecture that tightly integrates compute, storage, networking, and virtualization resources and other technologies on commodity hardware servers supported by a single vendor.

OVHcloud Is at the Forefront of the Data Revolution

Karen Kokiko • 11th September 2023

Information technology is going through a digital transformation and reshaping how we do business, how we interact, how we make decisions, and how we influence our society. OVHcloud® is at the forefront of this data revolution, standing apart from the competition with a strong commitment to creating a level playing field and the opportunity for...

Right Sizing & Workload Optimization in the Cloud

Joon Lee • 11th September 2023

Organizations facing the challenges of scaling their cloud infrastructure can achieve improved performance by implementing the principles of right sizing their infrastructure. This practice is essential for optimizing cloud infrastructure and enhancing its overall effectiveness. In this guide, we will discuss the benefits of right sizing, including optimizing costs, eliminating waste and improving performance. We’ll...

OVHcloud Is at the Forefront of the Data Revolution

Karen Kokiko • 11th September 2023

Information technology is going through a digital transformation and reshaping how we do business, how we interact, how we make decisions, and how we influence our society. OVHcloud® is at the forefront of this data revolution, standing apart from the competition with a strong commitment to creating a level playing field and the opportunity for...

Can Europe take on the US Cloud giants?

Richard Hilton • 30th August 2023

With so many issues coming up about cloud storage, what is the solution to the dominance of the major giants like AWS (32%), Microsoft (23%) and Google (10%) taking 65% of the world cloud market?

The race to dominate the AI space

Kevin Cole • 24th August 2023

The launch of Chat GPT-4 in March of this year provided the catalyst for a conversation that has been gaining momentum for some time now: How will artificial intelligence (AI) change the world?